Bonjour, mais pour trois heures seulement

So apologies for the gaps in posting over the last little while - I've been travelling around a bit, partly as a last-ditch effort to try to grab some summer sunshine before it was too late.  On a very modest budget, of course - if George Osborne did package holidays, this was my Austerity Break.  But I'm back home now, so the Great Scot Goes Pop Video Experiment will now recommence if I can ever manage to commandeer the household webcam.  I did actually make a few short videos for you with my phone while I was away - nothing very exciting, they were just intended to keep the YouTube channel ticking over, but somehow I never got around to posting them on the go.  But I thought "you know what, there are some advantages to that, when I get home I can stitch them together with other short videos I took in the same location to make them much more interesting", but I've just spent the last two hours discovering that when I pump videos from my phone into the video editor, they for some reason turn into a flip-book effect of still images.  My old international thriller writer friend from Stormfront Lite is forever telling us that Artificial General Intelligence is just around the corner and that we're on the brink of a terrifying age of God-like machines that will render humans redundant.  Well, that may or may not be true, but I'll only believe it when you give me a self-driving car and a video editor that works.

So I'm going to admit defeat for now and just give you the no-frills version of the video I recorded last Sunday on a day trip to France - which was actually a remarkably inexpensive journey, presumably because the ferry companies make a killing on Duty Free sales.  I might do an updated version of the video later with more footage of Saint-Malo if I can ever get to grips with the necessary technology.  I said in the video that I only actually got three hours in France, but I realised afterwards it was less than that due to the post-Brexit passport queues, which I was experiencing for the very first time.  But in fairness, when I got to the end of the queue, the French border police were very friendly and got me through the barrier quickly, and French customs didn't even bother with me.  Which is far more than can be said about another border regime I encountered while I was away.  Hmmmm, can you guess which one that was?  More on that later...

The mystery of the 90% Green abstention rate

 

Greetings from sunny Birmingham, where I am currently on a bus on the motorway.  This is my second attempt to take advantage of the time on the journey to post about the result of the Scottish Green leadership election.  I fell asleep during my first attempt (not a snide comment - I literally fell asleep), and I thought that was fate telling me to abandon the idea.  But I've been moved to have a second go after seeing Stew's post on the subject.  What a remarkable lack of curiosity he has.  He takes endless delight in sneering about the 90% abstention rate as if it can somehow be explained entirely by a lack of enthusiasm for the candidates, seemingly without it occurring to him how phenomenally improbable that notion is. 

Something very strange is happening here - members of political parties are generally far less apathetic than the public at large, not far more so.  A lack of interest simply can't plausibly explain a 10% turnout.  Have the Greens been massively exaggerating their membership numbers?  Did they fail to adequately advertise the leadership election to members or to properly explain the voting process?

For what it's worth, although the new Greer/Mackay leadership will not resolve the Greens' biggest problem (their identity politics extremism), I think they may have marginally boosted their chances of electoral success by narrowly ousting Lorna Slater.  Anecdotally, she really grated on people.  I don't think that's anti-Canadianism (if such a thing exists), because there are plenty of very attractive Canadian accents, but she just comes across as very hectoring and humourless.

As for Stew's ongoing fantasies about next year's Holyrood election producing some sort of Green Armageddon, again I think that's wide of the mark.  If Polanski wins the English Green leadership race and goes into an electoral pact with the Jeremy Corbyn/Zarah Sultana party, it becomes very difficult for the Scottish Greens not to consider a similar arrangement, which might actually help them prosper.  My main concern would be the implications of that for their pro-independence stance.

Reform UK are a Scottish parliamentary party once again - but it's a very different world from last time around

One of the regular features of recent Scottish subsamples in GB-wide polls is just how appallingly badly the Scottish Tories are doing - it's not uncommon to see them behind the Liberal Democrats in fifth place.  It's unlikely that they'll be wiped out completely at next year's Holyrood election, ie. they're not polling as poorly as Alba yet, but I don't think that can be totally ruled out any longer.  Each of the three defections/departures from the Tory MSP ranks has created a sense of reverse momentum, and has added to an impression of a party on the way out and that no longer serves any real purpose.  Right-wing voters can follow Graham Simpson to Reform UK (and most of them already have done), while the more liberal type of voter won over by Ruth Davidson ten years ago has a natural home in the Liberal Democrats, who are more than ultra-unionist enough to cater for even the most frothing Brit Nat "liberal".

Reform now have their second MSP, but it might as well be their first given that Michelle Bannatyne was attached to the party in what feels like a different world.  They now have a Scottish figurehead of sorts to build their campaign and organisation around - but I still think any Reform success next year is likely to indirectly work in the SNP's favour.

*. *. *

SCOT GOES POP FUNDRAISER: I'm currently seeking an alternative funding model to keep Scot Goes Pop viable for the future.  Plan A is to turn it into a video blog (although there will be exceptions to that over the coming days because I may be on buses and trains quite a bit), and if that doesn't work Plan B is to move across to Substack or something similar.  However, it's probably going to take several months before I even begin to find out whether Plan A is workable as a funding model, and during that lengthy transitional period I desperately need to get the current fundraiser as close as possible to 100% funded just to keep the show on the road. It's currently 70% funded.  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  For anyone who would like to donate (and remember small contributions are just as valuable as larger ones), card donations can be made HERE. 

Or if you prefer, direct bank transfers are an option.  If you'd like to do that, just drop me a line at my contact email address - 

icehouse.250@gmail.com 

and I'll send you the necessary details.